Title: Sisters First: Stories From Our Wild and Wonderful Life by Jenna Bush Hager and Barbara Pierce Bush
Details: Copyright 2017, Hachette Book Group Inc
Synopsis (By Way of Front Flap): "Former first daughters Jenna Bush Hager and Barbara Pierce Bush share intimate stories and reflections from the Texas countryside to the storied halls of the White House and beyond.
Born into a political dynasty, Jenna and Barbara Bush grew up in the public eye. As small children, they watched their grandfather become president; just twelve years later they stood by their father's side when he took the same oath. They spent their college years watched over by Secret Service agents and became fodder for the tabloids, with teenage mistakes making national headlines.
But the tabloids didn't tell the whole story. In Sisters First, Jenna and Barbara take readers on a revealing, thoughtful, and deeply personal tour behind the scenes of their lives, as they share stories about their family, their unexpected adventures, their loves and losses, and the sisterly bond that means everything to them."
Why I Wanted to Read It: Political memoirs can be interesting to me for a glimpse behind the scenes of historic events, and if well-written enough, they can read like a novel.
How I Liked It: I have serious, profound issues with the Presidencies of both Bushes, particularly the latter of which I'm old enough to remember clearly. I'm also well aware of the fact political memoirs serve on some level propaganda purposes. First Ladies and adult First children (and First grandchildren, in this case) color and shape the image of the President, particularly post-term.
The authors appear to take that into account as the case with many of their readers, as they seek to tell stories that aren't primary about either President Bush so much as their father and grandfather, among many other friends and family members.
The book is a series of stories told from either sister that's more or less chronological and shares events from before they were even born (the stories their parents have told them about wanting children so badly and trying to adopt, both of their parents' childhoods and experiences with siblings and loss, both sets of grandparents' life stories) up through their childhoods, teen years, and early adulthood up into the present day.
The book is surprisingly wildly entertaining, amusing, and even touching. The attempts at relatability land far better here than they did in another memoir from an absurdly rich political dynasty family, Meghan McCain's tiresome memoir of the 2008 campaign, probably because the authors wisely do not tread too far down that route (let alone to the extent McCain did and still does). They share universal experiences (being teased, feeling out of place, loss, feeling defined by other people) but instead explore them through the lens of their own unique situation.
Visiting the White House for one of the first times as their grandfather was President, they're impressed and attempt to order food, only to have their grandmother (the First Lady) sternly inform them they are not guests at a hotel, but temporary visitors in an historic home. Years later, Bush-Hager returns as a journalist to interview the then-current First Lady Michele Obama (who kindly asks if she wants to see her teenage bedroom) and is greeted with hugs by the ushers who remember her as a child and offer her her favorite breakfast. Barbara Bush rejoices in school overseas in Italy where she enjoys a relative feeling of anonymity for the first time (countered later by meeting Silvio Berlesconi at the White House who all but propositions her before the female translator refuses to translate any further). Similar snippets of humanity woven through historic moments abound and don't disappoint.
The warm, amusing relatability is undercut a bit by the reminders that this is a political memoir. While all three Bush women (four if you include his mother) have supported causes in stark contrast with the second President Bush's politics, there are a few (mercifully brief, but notable) attempts at bolstering 43rd's Presidency. While they apparently begged him as teenagers not to run for President, they cite his "determination to serve" overriding them (most jaded spectators of American politics would say George W Bush was not enthusiastic about the idea and talked into it by his father's advisors). A story about their father drunk driving as a young man and hitting some trash cans (the purpose of the story being the disappointment he faced from their grandfather being punishment in and of itself) is particularly jarring for a number of reasons. Bush-Hager gamely offers that she still believes history will be the judge of her father's Presidency and Barbara Bush is quick to note that when she started supporting LGBTQ/MOGII causes as a teenager and debating it with her father, he was open to hearing her side and opinions (although she does not note that he ultimately rejected them and enforced policies and attitudes that directly harmed LGBTQ/MOGII Americans, including the best friend suggested to be the catalyst in her advocacy).
It isn't fair necessarily to hold the children of elected officials responsible for the political actions of their parents and grandparents, even as adults, particularly when they've supported causes that run counter to those actions. But I mention them because as I said, any political memoir has an element of shaping the image of the political figure to which it is connected.
To their credit, however, it's clear the purpose of the book isn't to alter opinions about their father or grandfather (although it's worth mentioning on a chapter about perceptions, Barbara Bush notes her father is just as bookish as her mother, and her mother adores the music of Bob Marley and frequently attended various concerts with the girls), it's to talk about the power of sisterhood and how throughout their famous, turbulent, and famously turbulent lives, they had each other, even when it seemed like they had no one else. If anything, they are two women who got through life together, that life just happened to be as world-famous First granddaughters and later daughters of the United States.
The thankfully brief, seeming attempts at post-term Presidential PR aside, it's an entertaining, enjoyable look behind the scenes of history and warm paean to the power of sisterhood.
Final Grade: B+
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